I was cold but didn't complain. And if I got cold enough I could always pop into a souvenir shop and get an I Heart Glastonbury jacket.
I was walking behind the two of them. As much as it pained me to admit, they really did make a good couple; that is, if they were in fact a couple at all.
Now explain to me how could you be born one day, and have the prettiest girl in the land the next?
Maybe if you were King Arthur, you could.
King Arthur?
Really?
I think I was jealous of the naked guy who wasn't naked any more. The naked guy who might just be the greatest king Britain has ever seen.
Or its greatest nut job.
Either way, Marion was hanging onto his arm as if he were a buoy in turbulent seas. For her, maybe he was. Even now, from behind them, I could see her struggling for breath. She was sick. Very sick, and my heart went out to her, and suddenly I wanted her happy no matter who she was with.
King Arthur made her happy.
Good for him.
Lucky bastard.
"So where are we going?" I asked, but the moment the words left my mouth I saw the answer: there, before us in a crowded outdoor marketplace, was a long line of smiling, happy people.
And why wouldn't they be smiling? After all, they were waiting in line for a chance to remove history's most coveted sword:
Excalibur.
* * *
We got in line, too.
I had to admit that I was a bit intrigued. Was Excalibur really in there? Could the naked guy who was no longer naked actually pull it free? So far, no one else had been able to remove it.
Of course not, a voice inside my head said. Because the sword is a fake. A ruse. A hoax to separate tourists from their hard-earned pounds.
Anyway, I watched a great many people enter the tent with a smile on their faces, only to exit a moment later still smiling. Sometimes they shrugged or snapped their fingers. And every one of them seemed to enjoy the experience.
Still. A scam was a scam. And I was sure this was one.
Well, pretty sure.
So we waited with the other chumps, and while we did so, I asked a few more questions. "Can we go back to the part where you mentioned remembering why you had returned here?"
"Of course," said Arthur.
"Can you, well, elaborate on that?"
"My reason for being here is very specific," he said. "I'm not necessarily here to learn or to evolve my own soul, although that might still happen."
"Because you're here to help," I said.
"Yes, exactly," he said.
The line moved forward a little. The wind picked up, whistling over my exposed ears. Luckily, I was growing my hair out, and my longish, rakish hair kept my ears mostly warm.
"And the rest of us?" I asked.
"The rest of you don't remember why you're here, which is kind of the point," he said.
"And what is the point?"
"To re-discover yourselves, to re-discover God."
"Why do I need to re-discover God?"
"You don't. You can do whatever you want."
I turned to Marion. "Does any of this make sense to you?"
She nodded. Of course she nodded. I'm sure that whatever her darling king said, she would agree to it. If he said pigs could fly, I'm sure she would have happily nodded about that, too.
Okay, that sounded a bit catty, didn't it?
Marion said, "We're born with a sense of separation from God for a purpose. One of our jobs here is to reconnect with God."
"To reconnect with God?"
"Yes," she said.
"Which implies we were already connected," I said, trying to kick start my brain into gear. "Or that I already knew Him."
"Yes," she said.
"Before I was born?" I said.
"Yes."
"You're saying I knew God before I was born?" Okay, now my head was hurting a little.
"Oh, yes," she said.
I looked to Arthur for some help here, but he was looking up into the sky, whistling to himself. A merry tune, from what I could gather.
The line before us continued moving; we shuffled forward obediently. Our conversation had attracted the attention of a few bystanders.
"Are you implying that I'm reincarnated?" I finally asked.
"No," she said. "I'm implying that you have always been alive."
"Always?"
"Yes."
"From the beginning of time?"
"Oh, yes."
Lord, my head hurt. Maybe there was a better way to pass the time in line. Maybe I should ask Arthur how Merlin was doing.
Or maybe not.
"Fine," I said, plunging blindly forward. "Last question before my head splits in two: why do we need to reconnect with God in the first place? Why not be born with full knowledge of God? Heck, why be born at all? Why not just keep living in Heaven? It's got to be better than here."
Marion looked at me patiently. "Only when we reconnect with God does true growth occur. Only when we awaken to Him do our souls evolve into something more than they were before."
"I don't under - "
"We are born with separation from God so that we may know separation."
"What does that mean?" I asked. "Seriously. Help me here."
"It means," said Arthur, leaning forward, his breath smelling of chocolate cinnamon. "You cannot begin to know God, unless you have not known Him."
"But - "
"Can you know up without knowing down?" he asked me.
"Probably not, but - "
"Can you know hot without knowing cold? Can you know good without knowing evil? Can you know love without knowing hate?"
"No, but - "
"So it is with God," said Marion. "If you bask in God's love for all eternity, then you will never have the experience of not knowing His love."
The line was moving again. We had attracted a few more listeners.
"And why would I want to experience not having God's love? I'm not exactly sure what God's love is, anyway, but having it seems a lot better than not having it. And if given a choice I choose to bask in God's love."
"Tis a good choice," said Arthur.
"But you're saying I chose to come here, to earth, to experience not basking in God's love."
"Yes," he said.
"And why would I do that?"
"To evolve. To grow. To experience something new."
"And I had a choice to be born?"
"Always," he said.
I was about to say something when Marion touched my arm lightly and pointed to the tent. "It's your turn, James."
And so it was.